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Canned hunts: sports afoul

By Walt Brasch - posted Thursday, 21 September 2006


At Ligonier, starvation wasn’t a problem. A game keeper told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Cheney alone killed about 70 of the 417 killed that day. In the afternoon, having hardly raised a bead of sweat, the good ole boys slaughtered dozens, perhaps hundreds, of equally tame mallards that had been hand-raised and shoved in front of waiting shotguns for the massacre.

No one kept score, but by the time Cheney flew out of the area, the mallards were plucked and vacuum-packed, according to the Post-Gazette, ready for flight aboard the taxpayer-funded Air Force 2. The pheasants the hunting party didn’t keep, according to the Dallas (Texas) Morning News, were donated to a local food bank.

However, no one involved indicated which food bank, nor did they acknowledge that preparing pheasant is cumbersome, and that such a donation, if it did occur, was probably more of a public relations ploy or a tax-deduction to justify their killing orgy than community service. Nor does any “donation” alleviate the reality that people in these non-challenging fenced-in grounds kill because they like the excitement of killing a live animal, often mixed with the sheer joy of watching their prey die.

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After awhile, the animals are seen only as things to be blasted, essentially living clay pigeons; it is an attitude that true sportsmen abhor.

The owners of the country club didn’t say how much, if anything, the Cheney Pot-Shot Safari paid, but others who go to the exclusive country club - or canned preserve - pay for each bird or duck killed. It’s in the financial interest of the owners to make sure there’s easy prey.

Even easier prey was a black bear named Cubby. In October 2004, Troy Gentry, who had paid about $4,650 for the tame bear, killed it on a private “preserve” in Sandstone, Minn., and then tagged it as if the bear was killed in the wild. There was even an edited videotape of the “stalking” and killing by the singer who envisions himself to be an expert archer. There is no law against the murder of animals if done on private property. But, in August 2006, Gentry was in federal court to defend himself against a violation of the Lacey Act, which forbids the false tagging of any animal.

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), with 10 co-sponsors, introduced a bill (S. 304) in February 2005 to ban the interstate transport of exotic animals for the purpose of them being killed on private preserves. “There is nothing sportsmanlike or skillful about shooting an animal that cannot escape,” said Lautenberg at the time he introduced the bill, and emphasised, “In an era when we are seeking to curb violence in our culture, canned hunts are certainly one form of gratuitous brutality that does not belong in our society”.

That bill is buried in the Senate’s Subcommittee on the Judiciary. A companion bill (HR 1688), introduced in the House of Representatives by Sam Farr (D-Calif.), with 39 co-sponsors, is buried in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Under the Republican-controlled Congress, neither bill is likely to emerge from committee.

For his part, President Bush wants to amend the Endangered Species Act to allow trophy-hunting Americans who kill endangered species in other countries to import them into the US. The proposal has roots in the Safari Club International: its political action committee has given about $800,000 in campaign contributions, mostly to Republican candidates, since 2000, according to an investigation by the Humane Society of the United States. The plan has the support of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, whose former deputy director was chief lobbyist for the Safari Club before his appointment by Bush. He is now with the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

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Many of the animals on canned hunts are surplus animals bought from dealers who buy cast-off animals from zoos and circuses; the animals sold to the preserves are often aged and arthritic. Dozens of preserves have bought black bears, zebras, giraffes, lions, boars, and just about any species of animal the client could want, solely to be killed, photographed, and then skinned, stuffed, and mounted. Ralph Saggiomo’s sheep may have come from a breeder in Missouri. The proprietors at Tioga, said Saggiomo, “were gracious, humane and helpful”.

Those “humane” proprietors are the Gee family, who believe their “preserve” is really a private farm. Like ones that grow alfalfa and corn. A 1,550 acre private farm - with a fenced-in area of about 150 acres to make that “sure shot” more probable. And, while people “from all over the world” are killing animals at Tioga, the “farm” operation provides significant “economic benefits” to the community, according to Michael Gee. There are 14 Pennsylvania farms and about 1,000 in the nation that the proprietors believe are the poster children for the Chambers of Commerce and, most certainly, the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.

This particular “farm,” according to its website, “features high success rate hunting, youth hunts, hunts with dogs, guided hunts, trophy hunts, Sunday hunting ... virtually any type of big game hunt you can imagine”.

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About the Author

Walter Brasch is professor of journalism at Bloomsburg University. He is an award-winning syndicated columnist, and author of 16 books. Dr. Brasch's current books are Unacceptable: The Federal Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrina; Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture; and Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (Nov. 2007) You may contact him at brasch@bloomu.edu.

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